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The inhabitants of those drawing rooms aren't usually thrilled to see him, because he always comes bearing bad news. This time, a body has turned up in a boat on the Thames: Delbert Cathcart, a talented portrait photographer with a taste for blackmail. Clad in a velvet dress, wrists manacled, legs spread grotesquely, skull crushed, Cathcart reminds Pitt of a perverse echo of the Lady of Shalott, or perhaps a debased Ophelia. Which of Cathcart's clients could have been pushed so far as to retaliate in such hideous fashion?
Pitt's official investigation is usually combined with another more idiosyncratic approach to the crime; this secondary analysis gives Perry free rein to dissect the manners and morals of Victorian society. In Half Moon Street, the genteel inquisition falls to Caroline Fielding, Charlotte's mother (Charlotte, who must need a bit of rest after so many outings, has been packed off to Paris for a vacation; her presence in the book is restricted to letters marveling, rather tediously, at the scandalous iniquities of the Moulin Rouge dance hall). Perry's readers will no doubt remember that Caroline scandalized society by marrying a much younger actor, Joshua. Half Moon Street introduces Caroline to his theatrical world, and to Cecily Antrim, a beautiful actress with liberal politics. Cecily poses both a personal and philosophical threat to Caroline, who is disturbed by her willingness to expose the realities of female sexuality on stage: "Should such things be said? Was there something indecent in the exposure of feelings so intimate? To know it herself was one thing, to realize that others also knew was quite different. It was being publicly naked rather than privately." This fear of exposure resonates through the worlds of theatrical and photographic art, as actors, diplomats, and genteel citizens race to hide their secrets from Pitt and Caroline.
While Perry evokes the London atmosphere with her usual skill, her narrative lacks its usual finesse. Rather than balancing Pitt's and Caroline's investigation, the novel lurches between them so that it seems all too often that Perry, in pursuit of one story, has forgotten the other. Additionally, Caroline's reaction to feminist politics and sexuality is inexplicably repetitive; her turgid expressions of horror seem the result of an overly eager copy-and-paste procedure. One hopes that this is a momentary lapse in an otherwise solid series. --Kelly Flynn --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
From Publishers Weekly
- moodily into the distance." 15-city author tour; audio rights to Random House Audio. (Apr.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great read, lots of twists. Must read..,
By Wariner (Hamilton, Ontario, Canada) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Half Moon Street (Mass Market Paperback)
This is an excellent book with lots of twists and turns. The best plot was the second story with Charlotte's mother Caroline finding out her deceased husband has a half brother.
4.0 out of 5 stars
A changing world...,
By meiringen "meiringen" (the Midwest) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Half Moon Street (Mass Market Paperback)
Excellent entry in the Thomas and Charlotte Pitt series, with Pitt trying to solve the mystery of a man found dead and drifting in a punt on the Thames River. Pitt is more on his own in this book, and Charlotte does not figure as prominently as before, but I did not see that as a drawback. Pitt's investigations take him to the bohemian parts of London, to the world of the theater. Pitt's search for the truth, along with help from Charlotte, shows us how the world is changing, from the Victorian to the modern.
4.0 out of 5 stars
Dickens' social conscience,
By
This review is from: Half Moon Street (Mass Market Paperback)
Half Moon Street begins with a bizarre murder that pitches Inspector Thomas Pitt into London's Bohemia, the playwrights battling against censorship and the new art of photography being wrought. With his wife Charlotte on holiday in Paris, Pitt is aided by her mother, now married to an actor. And in the booksellers and tobacconists of Half Moon Street, Pitt discovers a sinister side of the photographers art.
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